Racism charges against writer in San Francisco

Kenneth Eng was suspended for his article on Why I Hate Blacks .

An editor of a weekly newspaper calling itself, The Voice of Asian America apologised and suspended a columnist after Asian-American and city leaders condemned an opinion piece titled "Why I Hate Blacks".

In the piece, which appeared in the February 23 edition of San Francisco-based AsianWeek, contributor Kenneth Eng lists reasons why he supports discrimination against blacks — including because "they are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years".

Leaders at the Asian American Justice Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Coalition for Asian Pacific Americans and other groups are circulating a petition denouncing the column as "irresponsible journalism, blatantly racist, replete with stereotypes, and deeply hurtful to African Americans."

Ted Fang, AsianWeek's editor-at-large, called the decision to publish Eng's piece a "mistake" and held a news conference with leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in San Francisco on Wednesday to discuss how the Asian and black communities "can be different and yet get along and work together."

Fang said he suspended Eng from writing for the paper.

"The newspaper is sorry that this got published, and I am personally sorry that this got published," Fang told The Associated Press.

"The views in that opinion piece do not in any way reflect the views of AsianWeek."

The paper, with a circulation of 48,505, plans to review its policies to "understand how this happened and make sure it doesn't happen again," he added.